Customer Reviews:
 A stylish and original Wii exclusive March 14, 2008
R. Edmonds (London, UK)
21 out of 22 found this review helpful
One of the Wii's most stylish games and one of the console's best titles has arrived courtesy of Suda 51. Don't be put off by other reviews that berate the UK version (which is the same as the Japanese original) just because it lacks the blood of the US version, this doesn't affect the overall quality of what is a superb game. In fact many reviews, and Suda 51, prefer the bloodless version as it improves the games pace and doesn't distract from the games overall look.
No More Heroes is the gaming equivalent of Kill Bill. You play the uber-cool Travis Touchdown, as you work your way through the 3D city of Santa Destroy, using your Wii remote to take out tons of enemies and work your way up the ranks to be the city's top assassin. Think PS2 classic Devil May Cry but with extra bits thrown in, including a variety of brilliant jobs/tasks to help fund your carnage. How many other games see you pumping gas, collecting coconuts, eradicating scorpions and catching lost kittens in order to earn cash? How many other games see you sitting on the loo in order to save the games progress? Humour is a big part of what makes No More Heroes so great and whilst it might sound like a gamer's game, casual gamers shouldn't be put off, the introductory training mode will have you up and running in minutes.
And should you need further convincing, NGamer, GamesRadar, Edge, The Official Nintendo magazine, nRevolution and IGN have given No More Heroes scores of between 88% and 94%, describing it as "...by far one of the best looking and most distinctive Wii games to date". It's hard to disagree.
A good cel-shaded game January 7, 2008
Master Boi (London, England)
13 out of 18 found this review helpful
After playing the Japanese version, I have to say, I'm quite impressed with Grasshopper studios efforts. Travis Touchdown, the character you control, strives to become Santa Destroys best assassin.
The game uses cel shaded graphics, which look rather nice despite the fact it makes certain things a little difficult to see. Your beam katana (the sword thing that looks like a lightsaber) is your key weapon. To swing it, you press A despite many people actually wanted to actually swing the Wii remote. This was slightly disappointing as I was quite looking forward to swinging the Wii remote, similar to Zelda: Twilight Princess. Z is for locking onto enemies and B is used to grab stunned foes. There are Wii controls though like keeping your Katana powered up.
When you're not kicking ass you can explore Santa Destroy on your jet powered motorbike. Santa Destroy lakes a little detail but its fun to explore. You still need to pay the bills though and do other things that you would in your daily life, I mean, you don't spend your whole day killing people do you?
You can customise Travis as well changing everything from his sunglasses to his shoes. There's plenty of variety in the game. You can be killing enemies on a train at one point and delivering coconuts to an old man at another. The game does include cartoon violence though e.g. lots of blood and gore so it's not suitable for young children.
Overall, the games great fun with plenty of things to do. No more heroes should keep you entertained for quite a long time.
 Enjoyable in short bursts, but pretentious and repetitive April 15, 2008
D. S. Roberts (Wales)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I'm one of the people who anticipated No More Heroes' release because of it being a pseudo-sequel to the excellent Killer7 more than anything else. The bags of hype and strong critical reception helped, of course. Having played the game through, though, it's disappointing both as a follow up to Killer7 and as a game in its own right...
Comparisons to Killer7 only really extend as far as the graphical style and the offbeat nature of its story. The game is more of a hack 'n' slash type than anything, so it's just as well that the combat is satisfying and entertaining; wisely controlled mostly by button presses, finishing moves are performed by slicing the remote in a given direction, and wrestling moves can be performed with similar gestures. The fighting is fun and new tricks and tactics open up the more you play it. Unfortunately even then it becomes tiresome after a while, thanks to the endless strings of identical enemies and the fact that you do very little else in between.
To say No More Heroes lacks variety would be a bit off-base; there are things to do besides fighting, such as the jobs comprised of basic mini-games - it's just that few of them are particularly interesting, and most are simple to the point of being tedious. Regardless of what you're doing, the game feels shallow and repetitive. The cycle of gameplay is highlighted (probably deliberately) by the plot, which sees you dispatching the top 10 assassins to get to number ones - wade through enemies down identical corridors for about 10 minutes (sometimes less), kill a boss to rank higher, perform mundane minigames to make the money needed to access the next boss, rinse and repeat.
One of No More Heroes' biggest problems, in my opinion, is that it thinks it's a lot cooler than it is. The references to gaming and anime cultures feel forced and the cut-scenes are as baffling as they were in Killer7, but without being clever, funny or having any real point to them. By the end of the game the cut-scenes were so stupid and pretentious it was actually getting on my nerves; it doesn't help that lead character Travis Touchdown is possibly the most unlikeable in any game ever. We're supposed to find his perverted nerdiness endearing, but every time he started spouting his moronic dialogue I found myself wishing I could play as the other assassin and murder the little twerp.
No More Heroes isn't a terrible game, or even a bad game, but it's something I could only recommend if it was cheap, and even then it's something that can only be played in limited doses before it gets boring. Every effort made by the developers to flesh it out into something more than a hack 'n' slash seems to have failed - the bonus missions you unlock are all identical (kill all the enemies without receiving damage, which is incredibly frustrating, especially when you fail and aren't given the option to retry). The town the game is based in is so dull and lifeless that exploring it for cash and t-shirts with which to customise Travis feels like a chore. All in all it just feels like Grasshopper spent so much time trying to make the game cool that they forgot to make it fun.
 CENSORED FOR EUROPE AND JAPAN March 2, 2008
Geraldine Barnard
8 out of 43 found this review helpful
This is a great game, but the developers decided to cut out ALL of the blood and gore that made the American version so great, into this mess. I mean for God's sake, it all looks extremely unrealistic, look on youtube if you don't believe me. The blood and gore is one of the things that made this game so damn fun, and whoever made the decision (whether it was the BBFC, or the publishers I don't know) went and turned it into this half-assed mess. I will be boycotting this release, and wil try to find out if there is someway to get the US uncut version to work on my region locked wii.
 Grasshopper does it again February 2, 2008
Mr. J. Chalkley (Canterbury, England)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Grasshopper made a little known game on the gamecube and ps2 for their first outing called Killer 7. That game also had graphics in the same light as No More Heroes.
It seems as though Grasshopper likes the cel shaded games, and I am personally all for it, Killer 7 was also a violent, bloody game and in cel shaded graphics it does not seem as bad, but all the while still looking fun and attractive to play.
I was disappointed with the lack of wiimote controls but I think in the heat of battle it would of been a tiresome effort to keep swinging the wiimote around.
All in all a good game, and one well worth getting if your the right age.
It is something fun, and distinctively non-wii about it, which is what the wii needs.
A fun game to play before Super Smash Brothers Brawl comes out
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